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Monthly Archives: July 2014

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Yep, that’s it.
Me and no-one else in the whole world.
Actually, maybe I will boast a little bit.
Some of them are sick awesome, some are must-reads, some just silly but whether anyone reads the bitches or not I deserve kudos for being the first person in this whole mental world for being so prolific.
I have little interest in writing again at the moment. Got two more in the editing bank but not sure I’ll write again.
We’ll see, watch this space.
Oh yea I forgot, its like pissing in the wind.

Started proofreading.
TV got too boring but I’m still blank as far as writing goes. The point eludes me and the buzz seems long gone. When you receive emails rejecting your work five months after you approached an agent it just seems pointless.
I’ll write again but not until something jumps out at me that I HAVE to get stuck into. Even writing that makes me realise how ridiculous the idea seems. There’s so much more to life.
While I’ve been disconnecting the world keeps turning.
Nothing changes, same old wars by the same old culprits.
Same old lies by the same politicos.
Same tedious news endlessly rerunning what happened ten/twenty years ago just with different protagonists.
No wonder I get tired. Little surprise the world gets boring, the mind seizes in any attempt to make sense of it.
I feel like I’ve run out of ideas or interest just at this moment. It’s my old coping mechanism…if you don’t compete, if you’re not complicit, you can step outside of it all and exist separately from the herd.
Politics….no ta.
Religion…na.
Women….no way!
Literature….take a break. Maybe it will return, if not? I’ve failed before…….

Well how nice to not be wrapped up in a novel.
I actually found myself in danger of becoming bored this afternoon. First time in I don’t know how long but it made a nice change. I know I’ll try to start up some bollocks and convince myself.. “this one, this is the one that will” what, exactly?
Make me rich?
Gain me the respect I somehow think I deserve?
Prove my worth to the world?
Yea right! I constantly question what it is I’m trying to achieve and lately? I have absolutely no fucking idea. I know that whatever it was I was hoping to gain by writing has not come about.
Plenty of frustration, plenty of disappointment, plenty of anger at so-called friends and family who couldn’t be bothered to take an interest.
I wonder if there’s some odd attention-seeking weirdness behind it all. Why I can’t just be content to continue without the approval of others whether they’re family, friends, acquaintances whatever. What is that about? Is it some sort of poor-me bollocks carried over from my pathetic childhood?
I think I’m done.
Whatever it was I think it’s waning. The last few have been really hard work, the words don’t flow although the finished result is great but that’s exactly it. I have nothing to prove, I’ve done it. Some of my stuff is awesome. If people don’t recognise that, it’s irrelevant. I’ve put the work in, I’ve proved I can do it, proved to myself I can write. Music, photography and literature but I’m no fucking salesman, everything always gets ruined by the fucking business of sell sell sell, money money money. Since when did anything decent come out of people chasing poxy money?
If that’s the motivation, forget it.
I set out to write that story for Scarlett, done.
Wrote stories about all the grandchildren except Sophia but I’ll write hers one day. All the rest of the shit has been astonishing, extras I could never have predicted and in years to come hopefully I’ll forget it was me who wrote them and simply enjoy them as if they’re… just stories, just simple stories.
Isn’t that enough?

As predicted I finally got to the end of the scifi thing.
85,870 words in the end.
A twist in the tale, kind of. Was it a lazy ending? I thought it was a cool idea but no doubt I’m delusional. It’s an occupational hazard. You have to be imaginative and arrogant enough to keep the faith with your ideas but whether that means they’re any good is another matter. Probably not for me to decide.
Anyway, it’s a relief to let the pen slide, effete, from my fingers.
I typed up the pages I’ve written today so it’s all up there ready for the arduous proofreading/editing process.
This is my favourite bit though.
The pen is redundant, the brain fills with cotton wool, the TV provides succour and, hopefully, the whole nasty business will drift into the memory it deserves to be. Eventually I’ll face the next part of the process but for a while I can pretend it’s nothing to do with me.
I might stare into space a bit.
Might go to the beach tomorrow and see if I can get bored. Usually I’m too busy writing, writing, writing, on and on, using up braincells I’ll probably need later on but oh no, like an athlete with the bug I keep straining to achieve better results only to significantly shorten my chances of good health and proper braincells in my dotage. Getting older’s not a problem so long as the mind keeps ticking over but go using up all the good cells on silly scifi stories and who knows where one might end up!
So, I deserve a good long rest now. I promised I would stop writing after this one, or at least get some sense of perspective, maybe get some Perspex and look through that? You never know, if nothing else it will give a different view of the world.
Anyway, if I have any advice it’s don’t become an author, it’s a bloody nightmare, thankless, hard work, an obsession that you never feel up to and spend countless hours berating your stupidity in attempting yet another subject beyond you and if by some miracle you do manage to complete the beastly thing that’s only the beginning. The Fucking thing never let’s you alone, don’t do it.
Do not do it!

It appears I might make 85/86,000 words by the time I’ve finished this sci-fi madness. I did worry a while back because I feel a fraud if I don’t get near the almost obligatory 90,000 minimum. I would prefer over 100,000 words for all my books just because it’s better value for money I reckon but as I’ve often said before like some old sage whose seen it all, done it, thought about getting a t-shirt printed but let’s face it the fucking things are one of the most hideous articles of clothing available these days and alway have been. It’s the ring-neck… Takes a certain sort of guy to get away with that. Personally I’m much happier in a v-neck or shirt-type arrangement but I get that it’s probably some form of betrayal to men.
I’m not keen on the slogan shirt either.
Band pictures without names, cool.
Advertising no-mark sports companies; er, no!
I’m still with Bill Hicks on advertising.

So; anyway, I look at novels a bit like the length of a film. If you can get 120 minutes for the same price as 90 it’s an easy choice eh? I always feel slightly cheated by the shorter film so I assume people will feel the same about my books which would make sense if I had an audience but I fucking well don’t, alright! If only I could get across how good this shit is my Nigerians but alas, alack, the muse is against me.
“One day…well show them won’t we petal?”
“Yes dearest, we will.”

So: today I sat on a stile between two fields where the trees could protect me from the stoooopid heat, that felt as if it was frazzling the hairs on my neck, and wrote half a page.
A surprisingly nice place to zone out… Burnt House Lane. Ever since I saw they were resurfacing the lane I’ve wanted to cycle along it. It’s lovely anyway but now; the girth is slender but the length is good and so smooth!
After that it was on to a field on the edge of the downs above Apse Heath. Beautiful but it was too hot even for me and I love the sun although since I got my new tattoos I find it an absolute pain having to slather poxy sunblock on them every time I go out of the house for five minutes. Admittedly I was out for a few hours but what we need are sun-proof tattoos! Still, I got a couple more pages down and then, before I burnt to a crisp, I/we/us moved to the cycle path at Merstone before the return journey to Newport.
This island has got some magnificent countryside and some of the best roads in the world. Beautiful for cycling, motorcycling, shit for cars.

So; it’s been a productive day.
Wrote about 3,000 words, typed up 5 pages and I reckon I’ve got maybe 2/3 days left before the first draft is finished.
Novel number 14 is it? Something like that. Anyway it’s all good. It’s an amazing thing to finish something as complex as a novel. You start with a blank page and an idea and somehow it expands and flows, meanders and fantasises, metaphors and dialogues it’s way into something alive, something of you, a little slice of your mind for those that wish to sneak a peek behind the veil to see some of the inner workings. It constantly astonishes me the stuff that’s hidden in the corners of my weird brain. I swear if I hadn’t given up the weed and the cigarettes none of this would ever have found it’s way to the surface. Saying that, I might be delusional and the whole lot a load of old twaddle. If it is I’m just glad I got to use the word twaddle as it is exceptionally worth bringing into any conversation, probably. As is probably, best pronounced with an over-emphasis on the bab bit, probabibobobably.

Anyway, one/two/the three of us are pleased for once aren’t we?
Yes, we are. We can have a well deserved rest can’t we?
Of course, when we’re finished we will take some time off, until the next time. Maybe a fantasy fable next?

I enjoy tippex, not going to lie.
I write, you know; pen, paper, longhand, or should I call it PROPERLY!!! How is it longhand? it’s writing, it’s NORMAL. How did Dickens, Shakespeare, Yates, etc etc write if not properly? Imagine using a quill and ink!
Actually, one day, when I’m in my proper dotage, not the enforced one I’m trying to extend before the real one starts, I might try that. I can see me in a wooden cabin, proper fire, coffee, perhaps a tot of whiskey, brandy, vodka… sat up to a bureau with my quill and a proper olde worlde inkwell, sheafs of parchment, a candle burning, writing poetry.
I’ve only just begun writing poems but not like those Keats, Colwell love treaties, mine are more contemporary sort of mixed up hippity-hoppity style like the badass mutha I am…apparently.

Anyway, as usual, I’ve gone off subject.
I reached the 34th chapter of what I reckon will be a 35-chapter book this evening. Started writing early, went to the beach, wrote a bit, sunbathing, snack, coffee, wrote a bit, stretched a bit, wrote a bit more, coffee etc etc. came home, shops, food, tv, wrote a bit more and here we are; finally!
The vinegar strokes are usually quite good. Generally they write themselves although I tend to draw things out as much as possible. No-one enjoys a premature ending do they?
I know what the last chapter is so it’s only really this one that I’ve got to think too much about but as usual I’ll just smash it off my wrist and correct it if it needs it. I don’t do a lot of rewriting though, the basics are there, just a few odd changes of words, tense, full stops for commas, that sort of thing.
Oh and NEVER: EVER: a period.
I’m English, there is no such thing.
It’s called a full stop by the people who invented the language others bastardise; got that? Good.
Anyway, it’s quite exciting. I’m glad to be over, or nearly, with it.
The cupboard is bare, the brain full of cotton, apathy forbids me from doing any more after this one.
A break from the novel; fail…novel; fail, sequence is needed.
Perhaps a ‘proper’ job?
Absolutely not-a-chance.

I tried writing on the concrete path next to the beach today but only managed a few hundred words.
Why?
Because the world is more beautiful than the imagination.
I found myself watching a wasp which, for it’s own odd reason, seemed inordinately interested in a rock right next to the water. I mean, there’s never going to be any pollen on a salty rock by the sea is there! Bizarre, actually beeezarre even if it doesn’t work properly but the fucking thing buzzes so fuck off if you don’t think it’s funny; okay?
En eeeee waaaay, it’s difficult concentrating in the heat.
I have my little rituals at home which ARE transferable but today was a little too hot. I managed to burn both sides of my head on Sunday due to my superb Mohawk hairstyle and being inefficient with the sun cream. It’s not a great look having bright pink baldy bits glaring in the sunlight. It matches my hair I suppose. Regardless, I’ll be having another go tomorrow as we’ve been promised one of the hottest days of the year. Stormy tonight so; could be.
Whatever, the weather in England never lasts long and schools close any minute then… kids everywhere….eueuw!
Make the most of it before those bastids ruin the peace, fuckers.
I like kids but other peoples seriously make me want to assault them when they misbehave and the dumb fuck parent sits there doing nothing or has no clue how to deal with a kid when it’s upset. Er: beat the fuck within an inch of it’s whining, pathetic, squinnying life you fucktools! Fucking nanby Nancy muthafondling jesuslickers. What the fuck happened to adults?

I appear to have digressed. Easily done when there are so many things worth having a good moan about.
I’m getting closer to the conclusion of my scifi book.
I know how it will end.
I’ve put a twist in, or rather I WILL put a twist in at the appropriate point.
I don’t usually do this sort of thing. Well, I don’t usually write spaceship, aliens scifi so I’m a bit unsure what I’m doing really. Still, it’s been good. Not sure if I’ve been entirely successful but it’s all academic innit? If you’re warped mind is up and down, negative/positive/very negative/mildly positive/the raging unfairness of it all, negative, it’s very difficult to see much point and yet somehow we keep plodding don’t we precious?
Yes my love, we do don’t we?
Indeed, it is our vocation.

Writing sci-fi, sort of.
It’s mutated a bit but I never intended getting into spaceships and all that guff. I’m not sure what the genre I write is…sci-fantasy human condition philosophy maybe? Still, write what you don’t know eh?
It cracks me up when I see all these quotes recycled as if the author of them is some sort of genius beyond the intellectual capacity of the rest of us mere wanna-be’s. I may be non-successful in the financial sense but I can make up my own quotable anecdotes thanks awfully, too kind.
‘Write what you don’t know, it’s more interesting’ being one of them.
‘Make up your own words, if it’s okay for Shakespeare…’ Is another.
See? I’m good at it. I’ve got loads too many to list here.
Anyway, the 75,000 word level has been passed and I’m getting there. I make it difficult by making it up as I go but it’s the only way I know. Planning and plotting chapters seems too strategic, too American for me. I imagine all these writers-course wankers hunched over their iPads, plotting, all desperately trying to come up with the new Twilight/Fifty shades/Harry P when they’ve been done. I know most people want to go over the same old shit but I don’t although unwittingly I probably do anyway but at least allow me the delusion.
My thing is the reluctant hero/heroine.
Strong female characters, ballsy women but guess what? Women go on about how they want such characters but have I got a huge female audience? Have I got an audience? At all?
And I tried so hard to be positive

I just uploaded the free bit of my book on Kindle and read the first chapter. It’s really good! Like a proper book though there is an awful lot of fucking swearing. The thing is, if your character is a sweary foul-mouthed druggy musician what can you do? People swear, it’s life; get over it.
Actually the sort of people who get uptight about the fuck word aren’t the sort I want reading my stuff anyway. They can fuck off.
Anyway, I can’t see any reason why you wouldn’t want to continue reading it. It’s one of those ‘ooh, I wonder what happens next?’ type of novels.
I’m probably biased though I try not to be, it’s just I wonder why it’s not doing so well when some of the drivel out there sells masses. I think I’ll take the higher moral ground and pretend mine is more artistic, prose-worthy, more a fine art work than the trashier Mills & Boon toilet. I’ll probably never be regarded along with the greats but obviously that’s the level I’m aiming for and fuck it if no-one agrees, I reckon I achieved it with this one.

Had my foot recoloured after about four years of it slowly looking more and more anaemic. I don’t know which Eastern European country the guy bought his ink from but I think it must have been out of date as the ink fell out before it even healed which would be okay once but I went back and had it done twice! Tosser.
Anyway my Gurl Lisa at Arora, Newport I.O.W. sorted it for me today and put my granddaughter’s name and some pink leopard skin on my shoulder. My skin is so sensitive it’s all swollen up at the moment but it’ll look great once it’s healed. I get dermatitis, (allergic to metal, you know, like the stuff the needle’s made of?) if I had any sense I wouldn’t have tattoos but I’m on a journey of discovery. I’m trying to see if I can get septicaemia.
Not reaaaalleee, but my skin does not like being scratched raw by metal at all, it gets a bit pissed off and goes all red and swollen as if it’s in a strop with me for putting it through the ordeal. The thing is I can’t have the other kids names on me and not my new girlie, Sophia, so tough shit, it has to be done.
That’s probably it for a while now, I keep saying I might have a dragon on my leg but it’s the money!
SO expensive.
£75 for the work today, well worth it but it’s a luxury I cannot afford unless there’s a grandchild involved but that should be the last…unless.
Naiomi hasn’t even started with kids yet but that’s another story altogether.